Wine Experts Are Born with Better Tongues

Bad news for amateur oenophiles: A study out of Penn State’s sensory evaluation center just found that wine professionals, as a group, have better senses of taste than the average drinker. The researchers figured this out by going to a wine tasting event in Ontario and splitting the attendees into two groups based on a questionnaire. On one side: wine consumers, the people who like the stuff, but don’t live their lives for it. On the other: wine experts, those who are professional vintners, wine writers, wine judges, and “liquor control agents.”

Next, the participants were fed an odorless chemical used to taste how sensitive a person’s taste buds are. If the chemical tastes like nothing, or has just a slight zing of bitterness, your tongue is normal. If the chemical tastes extremely bitter, like a mouthful of quinine-soaked acorns, your tongue is extraordinary. (If you can’t imagine what that tastes like, we congratulate you on not being the kind of person who idly decides to try eating an acorn if you’re bored in a park.)

After the taste test, the scientists found that the “wine experts” were much more likely to experience the extreme bitterness than the “wine consumers.” Biology plays a part in other industries, too–basketball players tend to be taller than your average fan and musicians have perfect pitch at a much higher rate than the rest of the population–but it would be interesting to see if the same held true for food writers and “experts.” If some enterprising scientists want to start the survey at Bon Appetit, you know where to find us.